Inside Trade

October 11, 2025

Featured Content - Elections

Critics: Trump camp peddling ‘rosy view’ of economic history to justify tariffs

With the presidential campaign entering its final sprint, economists and others -- including former Republican lawmakers -- are publicly challenging former President Donald Trump’s interpretation of U.S. economic history, saying the candidate’s campaign is espousing what one called a “rosy view” of the role of tariffs in the country’s development to justify his proposals. “They sort of use it as a legitimating device to justify what they're doing,” Douglas Irwin, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College and the author...

UAW president urges Harris to call out Trump’s ‘disastrous missteps’ on trade

As the presidential campaign draws to a close, Vice President Harris should highlight how former President Trump’s trade policies have harmed U.S. workers, according to United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain. In an interview with The Nation published on Oct. 25, Fain contended that Harris’ closing argument should focus on how “Trump’s NAFTA,” the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, has driven up the U.S.’ trade deficit and failed to support working people. Trump led the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade...

Lighthizer, defending Trump plans: U.S. grew fastest under high tariffs

During the fastest period of U.S. economic growth, from the end of the Civil War to 1900, the average tariff rate was around 10 times higher than today’s and almost always stood at over 40 percent, former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer writes in the Wall Street Journal – accusing the paper of a “jihad” against former President Trump’s tariff plans. Lighthizer was responding to an op-ed by former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm and Donald Boudreaux, a professor of economics...

Obstfeld: Blanket tariffs akin to a ‘grenade’ in the world trade system

The imposition of across-the-board tariffs would be like a “grenade” in the multilateral trading system, a former International Monetary Fund and White House economist warned on Thursday. During an Oct. 17 panel discussion hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project, Maurice Obstfeld, the C. Fred Bergsten senior fellow at Peterson, said the sweeping tariff plans of former President Trump would undermine World Trade Organization rules and wreak economic havoc. “A regime of universal...

Trump: 50 percent tariff could be needed to boost U.S. manufacturing

A 10 percent tariff might not be enough to convince companies to move manufacturing to the U.S., former President Trump said on Tuesday, suggesting tariffs on U.S. imports might have to be set as high as 50 percent in some cases. Trump has campaigned on a plan to impose tariffs of 10-20 percent on all U.S. imports and a 60 percent tariff on all imports from China. During a Tuesday interview at the Economic Club of Chicago , the Republican...

UAW’s Fain: ‘Trump’s NAFTA’ made U.S. workers worse off

Ed. note: This story has been updated after publication to clarify which of Trump's proposals was new. Former President Trump’s renegotiation of the North American Tree Trade Agreement led to a widening trade imbalance and job losses, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain charged on Thursday, decrying what he called “Trump’s NAFTA.” Fain, along with a Harris-Walz campaign senior adviser, spoke about the former president’s record on trade and manufacturing and its impacts on the auto sector during a...

Former officials: Remember Trump is a ‘dealmaker,’ not just a ‘tariff man’

Tariff hikes on Chinese goods and a proposed across-the-board tariff on U.S. imports have dominated discussions about former President Trump’s likely trade policy agenda should he be re-elected, but former Trump-era trade officials tell Inside U.S. Trade a second Trump administration, much like the first, would also have a free trade bent, citing the former president’s penchant for dealmaking. In a first term defined by tariff escalations on imports from China and elsewhere, Trump also pursued multiple liberalizing efforts...

Harris blasts Trump for USMCA auto rules, suggests she'll use 2026 review process to address them

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement negotiated by the Trump administration made it “far too easy” for auto companies to outsource jobs, Vice President Kamala Harris charged on Thursday, touting her vote against the deal and saying she will use the 2026 USMCA review process to address her concerns. Ahead of former President Trump’s visit to Michigan on Friday, where he reportedly will focus on auto issues, Harris issued a statement calling Trump “one of the biggest losers of manufacturing in American history”...

McConnell: ‘I’m not a tariff fan’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is “not a tariff fan,” he said on Tuesday, responding to former President Trump’s campaign promises. Appearing before reporters at the Capitol, McConnell was asked about Trump’s pledge to slap John Deere products with 200 percent tariffs if they are made in Mexico. The company in June said it was moving some manufacturing to the country. McConnell was also asked more broadly about tariff proposals made by Trump, the Republican nominee for president. “I'm...

Trump: ‘I don’t need Congress’ to impose new tariffs

Former President Trump on Monday promised to impose a litany of new tariffs -- including duties on John Deere tractors and Chinese-branded autos built in Mexico -- while brushing away the question of whether such actions would require the consent of Congress. “They’ll approve it, they’ll approve it,” he said at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. “Number one, I don’t need them. I don’t need Congress. But they’ll approve it. I have the right to impose them myself if they...

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